removing a list of records from a database

[sophiabrooks]

I am not sure if this is a scripting question, but here goes...

I have many, many databases that my office uses for mailing lists. We also buy lists in excel format. I deduplicate the lists by pulling them into one Filemaker database and running a script which marks, then removes all but the first instance of the same address.

We also have a growing list of people not to send to.

Currently, I am doing a find and hand deleting each one, but it seems to me that there should be some way to automate this, as the list is now close to 200 names. Since we purchase new lists, I cannot just delete them from the lists we maintain and be done with it.

If anyone has any hints or tips as to where to begin it would be very helpful. I am pretty good at noodling through solutions, but as I send, I am not sure where to start.

Thank you sooo much

Nadine Taylor

University of Rochester

[Vaughan]

The hard part is working out how to match the records... address, name? I dunno, but you probably have worked something out.

Make your "not send" list into a FMP database, and relate this to your "main" database of addresses. Use whatever matching method you prefer (name, address etc).

In the main database, create a calculated field that counts how many records in the "not send" database are related: if there are one or more related records then that record should not be sent to.

[Ender]

Why not just use a field to mark which records are on the "Do not Send" list. You can then omit those from your finds and reports. You'd just need to make sure when you're deleting duplicates, that you remove the new duplicate record(s) and leave the one that was already there.

[sophiabrooks]

Thank you thank you thank you! I am quite sure this will work out just how I need it to!